Hello to all!!I must say that I have found a great deal of helpful information from reading the through many of the forum posts. I would like to take this opportunity to say thank you to all of those who have contributed to the mass of information here!!

So…. THANK YOU ALL!!

I do have a question that I haven’t been able to resolve via searching…

I have a new cabinet saw (Delta 3Hp) being delivered today, and I am wondering if I should tip the delivery guy(s) or not?

Thanks guys!! I actually never really thought about it before… I paid for delivery… delivery includes one threshold, so I hadn’t even considered it until this morning when my wife asked about cash for a tip.

Tipping is always a good thing. No one was ever called a jerk for offering a tip, except for the guy who tried to tip Hugh Grant in Notting Hill.

My jointer was delivered 3 days ago. The freight driver jammed his jack into the crate 8-10 times and tore the bottom out. Fortunately the cast iron is strong than he is and I don’t think he hurt anything (will know tomorrow). In that case, I was not as generous. I opened the crate and he commented that some lift operator must have broken the crate being careless. I guess he forgot how the wood was torn up only minutes before, by him.

I usually do the following:1. “Hey” (to a friend) “what kind of beer do you like? Really, I have a 6 pack of that here, come get it.” 2. He arrives: “While youre here, I have this box i need to move….”

Like others have said. My standard for any tipping is if they go above and beyond what I have paid for. If I paid for lift gate and 1 threshold then I expect that for free. If they help more than I give them a generous tip. Many times I will show them the various projects I make (lets call this advertising) and will offer them something small (“do you have a kid that would like a …” again I write this off as advertising).

The only time I has a tool delivered was a Grizzly 15” planer and the delivery truck driver screwed up and it fell off the lift gate about 4 ft. to the street. I called Grizzly and they said to refuse delivery… and the only tip I gave him was advice to find another line of work.After that I found a place about 30 miles away that sells all sorts of woodworking machinery. Now, I’ll always pick any large tools.

When you pay for shipping, that includes getting the item from the warehouse to where you’re having it shipped to. The drivers responsibility is to take it from wherever it is on the truck to the back of the truck and that’s all. It then becomes your responsibility to get it off the truck and put it wherever you want. If you pay for lift gate service, the driver will move the item off the back of the truck onto the lift gate and lower it down to the ground and off the lift gate. They are under no obligation to do any more. Recently, I paid for lift gate service for my new band saw. The cost was $34. The driver, lowered the saw to the ground and without hesitation said “Are you putting it into your garage?” I said yes. The distance was 100 feet and the driveway is blacktop in good shape. He then rolled the saw into my garage. I didn’t really feel like I needed to tip the driver since the lift gate process for $34 was to roll an item 4 feet, push a button to lower the gate, roll the item 4 more feet off the gate and that’s it. $34 seemed like more than enough for the 30 seconds it took to accomplish that. But, I offered the driver $20 because I felt that I could have had to use my 2 wheel dolly, strap the saw to that, strain myself to tilt back the 500 pounds and hope it didn’t fall off the dolly as I rolled it the 100 feet down my driveway. It was worth it to know my saw would be put where I wanted it and it wouldn’t be damaged by a mistake I could have made, even though I didn’t make the request. As it turned out, the driver declined the tip because he was so late in the evening with the delivery, but In my mind the $20 would have been money well spent.

well I got my saw last night… The driver backed right down my drive. He then put he saw on the pallet jack and rolled it to the lift gate, had me give him a stop watch as he backed the truck to the garage so the lift gate cover the lip of the garage. So that made it an easy roll off of the gate into the garage without having to muscle it over the lip of the garage. He then helped me open up the crate to make sure all was well in the shipment!! We chatted for a bit as he was very interested in my shop and he only lives around the corner from me. I tipped him 20 bucks…